Post # 3 Charlie's Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

Charlie’s Kitchen

10 Eliot Street

Cambridge, MA 02138

www.charlieskitchen.com

A couple of weeks were skipped between Happy Burger’s trip to Deluxe Town Diner (see Post # 2) and the next outing to Charlie’s Kitchen in Harvard Square. That’s because I was involved in an unanticipated ten day food cleanse orchestrated by my wife Alicia, who anticipated a cleanse for herself and lobbied stridently for company. She suggested I’d feel guilty eating burgers as she enjoyed a healthy detox, and while I tried hard to convince her I could handle any potential guilt, she was far more convincing in telling me I could not. Long story short, I joined her in what she described as, “a fun little adventure we both can share.” 

For a week and a half we subsisted on flax seed shakes, nuts, raw vegetables, six ounce allotments of fish or chicken and water by the gallon. No processed food, no gluten, no dairy, no sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol.

NO BURGERS.

NO FUN.

A morning flax seed shake in the making. Yum!

Midafternoon snack. De-Lish!

By day five I was jonesing for some real food and began combing restaurant websites for Scott's and my next burger outing. When kale smoothies are positioned as "an exciting change of pace," perusing pictures of bacon burgers draped in drippy cheese might seem masochistic, but it helped remind me of what awaited at the end of the tunnel. With a few days left in the cleanse, I called Scott and we made a plan to head to Charlie’s Kitchen in Cambridge that coming Sunday, the day after Alicia's and my “fun little adventure we both can share" would be over.

On Saturday I texted Scott, and that’s when something curious happened. Scott, who is never without his phone and always up for anything, went AWOL on me. I texted two more times Saturday night and again on Sunday morning reminding him of our outing, but he didn't reply.

Needless to say, I went without him, as a good burger waits for no man.

I remember Charlie’s Kitchen from when Alicia and I moved to Boston in 1990 before we got married. She was not as into burgers as I was, so I’d hop the T and go to Charlie’s alone for their famous Double Cheese. It sounds sad and lonely, but three years later we got hitched and now have awesome seventeen year old boy/girl twins, so no need to feel overly sorry for me. Especially when one of the twins is seriously into burgers. For this trip I replaced Scott with my son Spencer.

Twin number one (sequentially speaking)

On Eliot Street, on the back side of Harvard Square, with a triumphant sign on its two story façade proclaiming “The Double Cheese Burger King,” you’ll find the refreshingly divey Charlie’s Kitchen. Charlie's has been a Harvard Square institution for over six decades and is one of the area's last remaining haunts from yesteryear. It's a place where bikers and professors chat with equal zeal about Harleys, homers and Homer while downing beers and burgers...all while being served by Helen Metros, the Grand Dame of waitressing who has worked the booths for 53 years.

Charlie’s has two floors. The downstairs room is typically dineresque, while upstairs is more bar-like. There’s also a deck out back where the college kids hang, and a few tables out front by the sidewalk where in good weather just about everybody likes to be. On the sunny Saturday Spencer and I showed up, the sidewalk tables were packed so we sat upstairs at a table by a TV set. After placing orders with an impressively tattooed waitress decades younger than Helen, we watched the Red Sox stumble through an inning until the food arrived. It should be no surprise what I ordered. Charlie's is the Double Cheese Burger King after all.

Charlie’s doesn’t try too hard, and that’s part of its charm. The burgers aren't over-engineered or given cute names or made into things they are not. The patties are thin and greasy (made of 80% preformed Certified Angus) and the bun is like what you'd buy in an eight pack at Stop and Shop... but the good kind with sesame seeds. All of which is fine by me if my mood is right. My only complaint is that the patties are so small and thin that the bun dwarfs them. One look and you realize why Charlie’s is the Double Cheese Burger King. One burger just isn’t enough to bring the burger-to-bun ratio up to respectability.

Charlie's Double Cheese

That being said, when you know what you’re in for, Charlie’s is a fine place for a hamburger. Spencer ordered his burger dry of condiments and piled high with bacon and loved it. I knew he would, as what kid doesn't like a pre-formed patty on a doughy white bread roll? I topped mine with ketchup, mustard, lettuce, sliced tomato and two fried onion rings swiped from Spencer’s plate during another Clay Buchholz walk. Though not as nap-worthy as the bigger, beefier, more creative efforts from the Boston Burger Company (see Post # 1) and Deluxe Town Diner, my burger was indeed a tasty morsel, especially compared to ten days of flax seed shakes. The price was right, too. Even with Spencer’s huge vanilla frappe the bill was under twenty dollars.

The next time I'm strapped for cash or feel like rubbing elbows with bikers, professors or Helen, I’ll be back to Charlie's for another no-nonsense burger from yesteryear.

Score: 7.25 out of 10 napkins